Releasing Congress’ ‘State of Economy’ report on Monday former PM Manmohan Singh said that the Indian economy is not in good shape.
The document was released at a press conference, which was also attended by P Chidambaram and other Congress leaders, a day before the government presents the Economic Survey.
“Tomorrow is the day when the government will present its economic survey. We thought it a good idea that we should also bring out a document which sets out what we consider is the real state of the economy. So that the country as a whole has the ways and means of assessing where the economy is, where it is heading to and what can be done to bring on the right path,” said Singh unveiling the “Real State of Economy”, prepared by the Congress.
“Indian economy is not in good shape is now obvious. The IMF has projected that the growth rate of India this current fiscal year will not be 7.6 per cent but 6.6 percent. Several other agencies have made similar projections,” said Singh.
“I will not comment on those projections, it is for you assess what the truth is. This is a contribution to the ongoing debate on where are economy stands, where it is heading to and what is to be done to pull it in the right path,” added Singh.
Reacting to BJP’s allegation that he and Chidambaram helped industrialist Vijay Mallya get huge loans for bailing out the now defunct Kingfisher Airlines, Singh said he did nothing against law. “What I did was with full satisfaction of mine that we were not doing anything against law of the land. It was a normal routine transaction and therefore the letter thats being talked about is nothing but an ordinary piece of letter,” said Singh.
Former Finance minister, PChidambaram, attacked the Modi government for not creating enough jobs.
There are no jobs, capital formation is declining, credit growth is the lowest in several decades. Yet if Government presents tomorrow a rosy picture of the economy, people of India are entitled to question that,” said Chidambaram.
“Every govt must be optimistic, but optimism must stem from a realistic assessment of the situation.NDA Govt tends to believe exaggerated version of economy, this research document is closer to truth than what Govt will say tomorrow,” he added.
